Psychology of Risk Behavioral Finance Perspective

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CHAPTER 10
The Psychology of Risk: The Behavioral

Finance Perspective
VICTOR RICCIARDI
Assistant Professor of Finance, Kentucky State University, and
Editor, Social Science Research Network Behavioral & Experimental Finance eJournal
What Is Risk Perception?

What Is Perception?
A Visual Presentation of the Perceptual
Process: The Litterer Perception
Formation Model
Judgment and Decision Making: How Do
Investors Process Information within
Academic Finance?
The Standard Finance Viewpoint: The Efficient
Market Hypothesis
The Behavioral Finance Perspective: The
Significance of Information Overload and
the Role of Cognitive Factors
Financial and Investment Decision Making:
Issues of Rationality
The Standard Finance Viewpoint: Classical
Decision Theory
The Behavioral Finance Perspective: Behavioral
Decision Theory
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What Are the Main Theories and Concepts from

Behavioral Finance that Influence an
Individuals Perception of Risk?
Heuristics
Overconfidence
Prospect Theory
Loss Aversion
Representativeness
Framing
Anchoring
Familiarity Bias
The Issue of Perceived Control
The Significance of Expert Knowledge
The Role of Affect (Feelings)
The Influence of Worry
Summary
Acknowledgments
References
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Abstract: Since the mid-1970s, hundreds of academic studies have been conducted in
risk perception-oriented research within the social sciences (e.g., nonfinancial areas)
across various branches of learning. The academic foundation pertaining to the psychological aspects of risk perception studies in behavioral finance, accounting, and
economics developed from the earlier works on risky behaviors and hazardous activities. This research on risky and hazardous situations was based on studies performed
at Decision Research (an organization founded in 1976 by Paul Slovic) on risk perception documenting specific behavioral risk characteristics from psychology that can be
applied within a financial and investment decision-making context. A notable theme
within the risk perception literature is how an investor processes information and the
various behavioral finance theories and issues that might influence a persons perception of risk within the judgment process. The different behavioral finance theories and
concepts that influence an individuals perception of risk for different types of financial
services and investment products are heuristics, overconfidence, prospect theory, loss
aversion, representativeness, framing, anchoring, familiarity bias, perceived control,
expert knowledge, affect (feelings), and worry.
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Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1155822
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The Psychology of Risk: The Behavioral Finance Perspective
Keywords: risk, perception, risk perception, perceived risk, judgment, decision

making, behavioral decision theory (BDT) , behavioral risk characteristics ,
behavioral accounting, standard finance, behavioral finance , behavioral
economics, psychology, financial psychology, social sciences, efficient
market hypothesis, rationality, bounded rationality, classical decision
theory, information overload
An emerging subject matter within the behavioral finance literature is the notion of perceived risk pertaining
to novice and expert investors. The author provides an
overview of the specific concepts of perceived risk and
perception for the financial scholar since these two issues
are essential for developing a greater understanding and
appreciation for the psychology of risk. The next section discusses the notion of classical decision making as the cornerstone of standard finance which is based on the idea of
rationality in which investors devise judgments (e.g., the
efficient market hypothesis). In contrast, the alternative viewpoint offers behavioral decision theory as the foundation
for behavioral finance in which individuals formulate decisions according to the assumptions of bounded rationality (e.g., prospect theory). The reader is presented with a
discussion on the major behavioral finance themes (that is,
cognitive and emotional factors) that might influence an
investors perception of risk for different types of financial products and investment services. A major purpose of
this chapter was to bring together the main themes within
the risk perception literature that should provide other researchers a strong foundation for conducting research in
this behavioral finance topic area.
Perceived risk (risk perception) is the subjective decision
making process that individuals employ concerning the
assessment of risk and the degree of uncertainty. The term
is most frequently utilized in regards to risky personal
activities and potential dangers such as environmental
issues, health concerns or new technologies. The study
of perceived risk developed from the discovery that
novices and experts repeatedly failed to agree on the
meaning of risk and the degree of riskiness for different
types of technologies and hazards. Perception is the
process by which an individual is in search of preeminent
clarification of sensory information so that he or she can
make a final judgment based on their level of expertise
and past experience.
In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers at Decision Research,
especially Paul Slovic, Baruch Fischhoff, and Sarah Lichtenstein, developed a survey-oriented research approach
for investigating perceived risk that is still prominent
today. In particular, the risk perception literature from
psychology possesses a strong academic and theoretical
foundation for conducting future research endeavors for
behavioral finance experts. Within the social sciences, the
risk perception literature has demonstrated that a considerable number of cognitive and emotional factors influence a persons risk perception for non-financial decisions. The behavioral finance literature reveals many of
these cognitive (mental) and affective (emotional) characteristics can be applied to the judgment process in relating to how an investor perceives risk for various types
of financial services and investment instruments such as

heuristics, overconfidence, prospect theory, loss aversion,
representativeness, framing, anchoring, familiarity bias,
perceived control, expert knowledge, affect (feelings), and
worry.
Since the early 1990s, the work of the Decision
Research organization started to crossover to a wider
spectrum of disciplines such as behavioral finance, accounting, and economics. In particular, Decision Research
academics began to apply a host of behavioral risk characteristics (that is, cognitive and emotional issues), various findings, and research approaches from the social
sciences to risk perception studies within the realm of
financial and investment decision making. (See, for example, Olsen [1997]); MacGregor, Slovic, Berry, and Evensky
[1999]; MacGregor, Slovic, Dreman and Berry [2000]; Olsen
[2000]; Olsen [2001]; Olsen and Cox [2001]; Finucane
[2002]; and Olsen [2004].) Academics from outside the
Decision Research group have also extended this risk
perception work within financial psychology, behavioral
accounting, economic psychology, and consumer behavior. (See, for example, Byrne [2005]; Diacon and Ennew
[2001]; Diacon [2002, 2004]; Ganzach [2000]; Goszczynska
and Guewa-Lesny [2000a, 2000b]; Holtgrave and Weber
[1993]; Jordan and Kaas [2002]; Koonce, Lipe, and
McAnally [2005]; Koonce, McAnally and Mercer [2001,
2005]; Parikakis, Merikas, and Syriopoulos [2006];
Ricciardi [2004]; Shefrin [2001b]; Schlomer [1997];
Warneryd [2001]; and Weber and Hsee [1998].)
WHAT IS RISK PERCEPTION?

Since the 1960s, the topic of perceived risk has been employed to explain consumers behavior. In effect, within
the framework of consumer behavior, perceived risk is
the risk a consumer believes exists in the purchase of
goods or services from a particular merchant, whether
or not a risk actually exists. The concept of perceived risk
has a strong foundation in the area of consumer behavior
that is rather analogous to the discipline of behavioral finance (that is, there are similarities regarding the decisionmaking process of consumers and investors). Bauer (1960),
a noted consumer behavioralist, introduced the notion of
perceived risk when he provided this perspective:
Consumer behavior involves risk in the sense that any
action of a consumer will produce consequences which
he cannot anticipate with anything approximating certainty, and some of which are likely to be unpleasant.
At the very least, any one purchase competes for the
consumers financial resources with a vast array of alternate uses of that money . . . Unfortunate consumer
decisions have cost men frustration and blisters, their
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INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT
self-esteem and the esteem of others, their wives, their

jobs, and even their lives . . . It is inconceivable that the
consumer can consider more than a few of the possible consequences of his actions, and it is seldom that
he can anticipate even these few consequences with a
high degree of certainty. When it comes to the purchase
of large ticket items the perception of risk can become
traumatic. (p. 24)
Cox and Rich (1964) provided a more precise definition

of perceived risk; its a function of consequences (the dollar at risk from the purchase decision) and uncertainty
(the persons feeling of subjective uncertainty that he or
she could gain or lose from the transaction). Stone and
Gronhaug (1993) made the argument that the marketing
discipline mainly focuses on investigating the potential
negative outcomes of perceived risk. This focus on the negative side of risk is similar to the area of behavioral finance
in which researchers examine downside risk, the potential for below target returns, or the possibility of catastrophic loss. Jacoby and Kaplan (1972) and Tarpey and
Peter (1975) developed six components or dimensions of
perceived risk, including financial, product performance,
social, psychological, physical, and time/convenience
loss. Tarpey and Peter were not solely concerned with
the consumers judgments as related to perceived risk (in
which consumers minimize risk). They investigated two
additional aspects: (1) perceived risk in which the consumer makes purchase decisions that he or she maximizes
perceived gain and (2) net perceived return in which the
decision makers assessment consists both of risk and return. These two components are analogous to the tenets
of modern portfolio theory (MPT) in financial theory: the
positive relationship between risk and return.
Human judgments, impressions and opinions are fashioned by our backgrounds, personal understanding, and
professional experiences. Researchers have demonstrated
that various factors influence a persons risk perception
and an ever-growing body of research has attempted to
define risk, categorize its attributes, and comprehend (understand) these diverse issues and their specific effects
(see Slovic, 1988). In some academic disciplines, findings
reveal that perceived risk has more significance than actual risk within the decision-making process. Over the
years, risk perception studies have been conducted across
a wide range of academic fields, with the leading ones
from the social sciences, primarily from psychology. In
essence, these groups were interdisciplinary, but the leading academic involvement has been psychological and the
methodology mainly psychometrics. Other disciplines to
be involved in the field have been economics, sociology
and anthropology (Lee, 1999, p. 9).
The notion of perceived risk has a strong historical presence and broad application across various business fields
such as behavioral accounting, consumer behavior, marketing, and behavioral finance. These academic disciplines
attempt to examine how a persons feelings, values, and
attitudes influence their reactions to risk, along with the
influences of cultural factors, and issues of group behavior.
Individuals frequently misperceive risk linked with a specific activity because they lack certain information. Without accurate information or with misinformation, people
could make an incorrect judgment or decision.
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All of these different issues demonstrate that a person

may possess more than one viewpoint regarding the acceptability or possibility of a risky activity depending
upon which factor a person identifies at a certain period of
time. So it is understandable that we cannot simply define
risk perception to a single statistical probability of objective risk (e.g., the variance of a distribution) or a purely
behavioral perspective (e.,g., the principles of heuristics or
mental shortcuts). Instead, the notion of perceived risk is
best utilized with an approach that is interdisciplinary and
multidimensional in nature for a given decision, situation,
activity or event as pointed out in Ricciardi (2004) and
Ricciardi (2006). When an individual makes judgments
relating to a financial instrument the process incorporates
both a collection of financial risk measurements and behavioral risk indicators (Ricciardi, 2004). Weber (2004) has
offered this perspective of risk perception:
First, perceived risk appears to be subjective and, in its
subjectivity, casual. That is, peoples behavior is mediated by their perceptions of risk. Second, risk perception, like all other perception, is relative. We seem to
be hardwired for relative rather than absolute evaluation. Relative judgments require comparisons, so many
of our judgments are comparative in nature even in
situations where economic rationality would ask for
absolute judgment. Closer attention to the regularities
between objective events and subjective sensation and
perception well documented within the discipline of
psychophysics may provide additional insights for the
modeling of economic judgments and choice. (p. 172)
Risk is a distinct attribute for each individual for the

reason that what is perceived by one person as a major
risk may be perceived by another as a minor risk. Risk is
a normal aspect of everyones daily lives; the idea that a
judgment has zero risk or no degree of uncertainty
does not exist. Risk perception is the way people see
or feel toward a potential danger or hazard. The concept of risk perception attempts to explain the evaluation
of a risky situation (event) on the basis of instinctive and
complex decision making, personal knowledge, and acquired information from the outside environment (e.g.,
different media sources). Sitkin and Weingart (1995) defined risk perception as an individuals assessment of
how risky a situation is in terms of probabilistic estimates
of the degree of situational uncertainty, how controllable
that uncertainty is, and confidence in those estimates
(p. 1575). Falconer (2002) provided this viewpoint:
Although we use the term risk perception to mean how
people react to various risks, in fact it is probably truer
to state that people react to hazards rather that the
more nebulous concept of risk. These reactions have
a number of dimensions and are not simply reactions
to physical hazard itself, but they are shaped by the
value systems held by individuals and groups. (p. 1)
The prevalent technical jargon within the risk perception literature has emphasized the terminology risk, hazard, danger, damage, catastrophic or injury as the basis for
a definition of the overall concept of perceived risk. Risk
perception encompasses both a component of hazard and
risk; the concept appears to entail an overall awareness,
experience or understanding of the hazards or dangers,
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the chances or possible outcomes of a specific event or

activity. MacCrimmon and Wehrung (1988) in the field of
management define perceived risk into three main groupings: (1) the amount of the loss, (2) the possibility of loss,
and (3) the exposure to loss. Essentially, perceived risk is a
persons opinion (viewpoint) of the likelihood of risk (the
potential of exposure to loss, danger or harm) associated
with engaging in a specific activity. Renn (1990) provided a
summary of findings in which perceived risk is a function
of the following eight items:
1. Intuitive heuristics, such as availability, anchoring,
overconfidence, and others.
2. Perceived average losses over time.
3. Situational characteristics of the risk or the consequences of the risk event.
4. Associations with the risk sources.
5. Credibility and trust in risk-handling institutions and
agencies.
6. Media coverage (social amplification of risk-related information).
7. Judgment of others (reference groups).
8. Personal experiences with risk (familiarity). (p. 4)
WHAT IS PERCEPTION?
As a general rule, academic studies on risk or investor
perception fail to express a working or introductory definition of the term perception or neglect to address the
issue of perception in any substantive form or discussion,
whereas works by Chiang and Vennkatech (1988), Epstein
and Pava (1994), Epstein and Pava (1995), and Pinegar and
Ravichandran (2003) provide the term perception in the
title and failed to discuss the term or concept again in their
writings. Unfortunately, this is rather misleading to the
reader in regards to the true subject matter of the academic
work. Even though much of the research on perception is
basic knowledge for researchers in the behavioral sciences
and organizational behavior, it has been essentially disregarded or not adopted for application by researchers in
traditional finance. The work of Gooding (1973) on the
subject of investor perception provides the only work in
finance that has provided an extensive discussion of perception in terms of a behavioral perspective. Only a small
number of research papers by economists have addressed
the notion of perception in a substantive manner in works
by Schwartz (1987), Schwartz (1998), and Weber (2004).
The notion of perception or perceived risk implies that
there is a subjective or qualitative component, which is not
acknowledged by most academics from the disciplines of
finance, accounting, and economics. Websters dictionary
has defined perception as the act of perceiving or the ability to perceive; mental grasp of objects, qualities, etc. by
means of the senses; awareness; comprehension. Wade
and Tavris (1996) provided this behavioral meaning of
perception as the process by which the brain organizes
and interprets sensory information (p. 198). Researchers
in the field of organizational behavior have offered these
two viewpoints on perception:
1. The key to understanding perception is to recognize
that it is a unique interpretation of the situation, not
an exact recording of it. In short, perception is a very

complex cognitive process that yields a unique picture
of the world, a picture that may be quite different from
reality. (Luthans, 1998, p. 101)
2. Perception is the selection and organization of environmental stimuli to provide meaningful experiences
for the perceiver. It represents the psychological
process whereby people take information from the
environment and make sense of their world. Perception
includes an awareness of the worldevents, people,
objects, situations, and so onand involves searching
for, obtaining, and processing information about that
world. (Hellriegel, Slocum, and Woodman, 1989, pp.
6162)
Perception is how we become conscious about the
world and ourselves in the world. Perception is also
fundamental to understanding behavior since this process is the technique by which stimuli affect an individual. In other words, perception is a method by
which a person organizes and interprets their sensory
intuitions in order to give meaning to their environment regarding their awareness of events or things
rather than simply characteristics or qualities. The process of perception involves a search for the best explanation of sensory information an individual can arrive
at based on a persons knowledge and past experience.
At some point during this perceptual process, illusions
can be intense examples of how an individual might
misconstrue information and incorrectly process this information (Gregory 2001). Ittelson and Kilpatrick (1951)
provided this point of view on perception:
What is perception? Why do we see what we see, feel
what we feel, hear what we hear? We act in terms of
what we perceive; our acts lead to new perceptions;
these lead to new acts, and so on in the incredibility
complex process that constitutes life. Clearly, then an
understanding of the process by which man becomes
aware of himself and his world is basic to any adequate understanding of human behavior . . . perception
is a functional affair based on action, experience and
probability. (pp. 50, 55)
Morgan and King (1966), elaborated further with their

description of perception from the field of psychology.
They provided two distinctive definitions of perception:
1. Tough-minded behavioralists, when they use the term
at all define perception as the process of discrimination
among stimuli. The idea is if an individual can perceive
differences among stimuli, he will be able to make responses which show others that he can discriminate
among the stimuli. . . . This definition avoids terms such
as experience, and it has a certain appeal because it
applies to what one can measure in an experiment.
(p. 341)
2. Another definition of perception is that it refers to the
world as experiencedas seen, heard, felt, smelled, and
tasted. Of course we cannot put ourselves in anothers
place, but we can accept another persons verbal reports
of his experience. We can also use our own experience
to give us some good clues to the other persons experience. (p. 341)
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The academic literature has revealed a wide interpretation among the different branches of psychology
regarding the exact meaning of the concept of perception.
(See Allport [1955], Garner, Hake, and Eriksen [1956],
Hochberg [1964], Morgan and King [1966], Schiffman
[1976], Bartley [1980], Faust [1984], McBurney and
Collings [1984], Cutting [1987], Rock [1990], Rice [1993],
and Rock [1995].) This is a similar predicament in terms
of the different interpretations of risk across various
disciplines. Researchers from the area of finance and
investments should focus on these basic characteristics of
perception:
r An individuals perception is based on their past expe-
rience of a similar event, situation or activity.
r People focus or pay attention to, different components
(information) of the same situation.
r A major premise of perception is individuals have the
r
r
r
r
ability to only process a limited number of facts and

pieces of information at a time in order to make a judgment or decision concerning a certain activity, event or
situation.
In general, its human nature to organize information so
we can make sense of it. (We have a tendency to make
new stimuli match what we already understand and
know about our environment.)
A stimulus (impulse) that is not received by an individual person has no influence (effect) on their behavior
while, the stimulus they believe to be authentic, even
though factually inaccurate or unreal, will affect it.
Perception is the process by which each individual
senses reality and arrives at a specific understanding,
opinion, or viewpoint.
What an individual believes he or she perceives may not
truly exist.
A persons behavior is based on their perception of what
reality is, not necessarily on reality itself.
Lastly, perception is an active process of decision making, which results in different people having rather different, even opposing, views of the same event, situation
or activity.
One final perspective is the one presented by Kast and

Rosenzweig (1974) who summarized the entire discussion
of perception:
A direct line of truth is often assumed, but each person really has only one point of view based on individualistic perceptions of the real world. Some considerations can be verified in order that several or many
individuals can agree on a consistent set of facts. However, in most real-life situations many conditions are
not verifiable and heavily value laden. Even when facts
are established, their meaning or significance may vary
considerably for different individuals. (p. 252)
A Visual Presentation of the Perceptual

Process: The Litterer Perception
Formation Model
Here we discuss Litterers simple perception formation
model (Litterer, 1965), shown in Figure 10.1, from the area
of organizational behavior in order to provide a visual
89
Past experience
Mechanisms of
perception
formation
Interpretation
Information
Perception
Selectivity
Closure
Behavior
Perception Formation
Figure 10.1 The Litterer Perception Formation Model

Source: Litterer, J. A. (1965). The Analysis of Organizations, p. 64.
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
presentation and further explanation of the perceptual

decision-making process. This model provides a good application of the previous discussion of perception. This
perception model has been described in detail by Kast
and Rosenzweig (1974) and Kast and Rosenzweig (1985)
from the field of management and applied in finance by
Gooding (1973) in an extensive research study on investor
perception.
Litterers model provides an illustration regarding how
perceptions are produced and thus affects an individuals
behavior. There are two inputs (external factors) to this
perceptual process, which are information (e.g., financial
data) and past experience of the individual (e.g., the decision making process of the investor). The model contains
three mechanisms of perception formation that are considered internal factors (developed from within a person)
which are selectivity, interpretation and closure. The notion of selectivity (selective perception) is an individual
only selects specific information from an overwhelming
amount of choices that is received (that is, a method for
contending with information overload). In essence, we
can only concentrate on and clearly perceive only a few
stimuli at a time. Other activities or situations are received
less visibly, and the remaining stimuli become secondary
information in which we are only partially aware of. During this stage, a person might unconsciously foresee outcomes, which are positive (e.g., high returns for their personal investment portfolio). A person may assign a higher
than reasonable likelihood of a specific outcome if it is
intensely attractive to that individual decision maker. Ultimately, this category of selectivity can be related to voluntary (conscious) or involuntary (unconscious) behavior
since a person might not decide upon the rational (optimal) decision and instead select from a set of less desirable choices (that is, the idea underlying the principles
of prospect theory and heuristics). However, the choices
might not be less desirable, at least in some cases. These
options might be the only feasible ones available given the
circumstances, lack of data or pressure of time.
The purpose of the second mechanism known as interpretation makes the assumption that the same stimulus
(e.g., a specific risky behavior or hazardous activity) can
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be understood in a different way among a number of decision makers. This process of interpretation relies on a persons past experience and value system. This mechanism
provides a structure for decoding a variety of stimuli since
an individual has an inclination to think or act in a certain
way regarding a specific situation or activity. Lastly, the
closure mechanism in perception formation concerns the
tendency of individuals to have a complete picture of
any specified activity or situation. Therefore, an individual may perceive more than the information appears to
reveal. When a person processes the information, he or
she attaches additional information to whatever appears
suitable in order to close the thought process and make it
significant. Closure and interpretation have a feedback to
selectivity and hence affect the functioning of this mechanism in subsequent information processing (Kast and
Rosenzweig, 1970, p. 218).
Our discussion of perception has provided some important principles on the perceptual process that should
provide an enhanced understanding of the notion of perceived risk throughout this chapter. The discussion has
attempted to demonstrate the complexity of the perceptual decision-making process from a behavioral finance
viewpoint. The awareness of this perceptual process is
connected directly to how investors process information
under the assumptions of behavioral finance such as
bounded rationality, heuristics, cognitive factors, and affective (emotional) issues.
JUDGMENT AND DECISION

MAKING: HOW DO INVESTORS
PROCESS INFORMATION WITHIN
ACADEMIC FINANCE?
The finance literature has two major viewpoints in terms
of how individual investors and financial professionals
process information:
1. The standard finance academics viewpoint that investors make decisions according to the assumptions
of the efficient market hypothesis.
2. The behavioral finance literatures perspective that individuals make judgments based on and are influenced
by heuristics, cognitive factors, and affective (emotional) issues.
In order to understand and consider the notion of the
psychology of risk, it is necessary to have a basic knowledge of how information is processed from a standard and
behavioral finance points of view.
The Standard Finance Viewpoint:

The Efficient Market Hypothesis
Since the 1960s, the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) has
been one of the most important theories within standard
finance (Ricciardi, 2004, 2006). The central premise of the
EMH is that financial markets are efficient in the sense
that investors within these markets process information
instantaneously and that stock prices completely reflect

all existing information according to Fama (1965a, 1965b).
The following is a brief description of each of the three
different types of market efficiency:
1. The weak form. The market is efficient with respect to
the history of all past market prices and information is
fully reflected in securities values.
2. The semistrong form. The market is efficient in which
all publicly available information is fully reflected in
securities values.
3. The strong form. The market is efficient in that all information is fully reflected in securities prices.
Nichols (1993) provided this point of view on the EMH,
implicit in Famas hypothesis are two important ideas:
first, that investors are rational; and second, that rational
investors trade only on new information, not on intuition
(p. 3). In other words, participants exist in a market in
which investors have complete information (knowledge),
make rational judgments and maximize expected utility.
The long-lasting dialogue (debate) about the validity of
this theory has provoked an assortment of academic research endeavors that have investigated the accuracy of
the three different forms of market efficiency. In reality,
most individual investors are surprised when informed
that a vast amount of substantive research supports the
EMH in one form or another.
Modern financial theory (standard finance) is based on
the premise that individuals are rational in their approach
to their investment decisions. College students and financial experts are taught that investors make investment
choices on the basis of all available information (public
and private) according to the tenets of the EMH. For example, an individual utilizes a specific investment tool
such as stock valuation that is applied in a rational and
systematic manner. Ultimately, the objective of this approach for investors is the achievement of increased financial wealth. Advocates of the efficient market theory
argue that it is futile to practice or to apply certain investment techniques or styles since an investors expertise and prospects are already reflected either in a specific
stock price or the overall financial market. Therefore, it
is unrealistic for investors to spend their valuable time
and resources in order to attempt to outperform the market. Professional investment managers and behavioral
finance academics have suggested that market inefficiencies (e.g., the evidence in the existence of market anomalies
such as the January Effect) exist at certain points in time.
First, the argument for market inefficiency would allow
for arbitrage opportunities (the chance to find mispriced
securities and generate superior returns) within financial
markets. If some investors believe the chance to arbitrage
does exist, they will attempt to identify a security first
so they can profit by exploiting that information and utilize a specific active investment style such as technical
analysis.
Nevertheless, supporters of the efficient market philosophy believe current prices already reflect all knowledge
(information) about a security or market. Secondly, if market inefficiencies exist this implies investors may sometimes make irrational investment decisions or judgments
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that do not comply with the strong assumptions of rationality. Therefore, this would demonstrate that individuals
are influenced by some different types of cognitive (mental) processes and/or affective (emotional) factors. These
types of behaviors in tandem with market inefficiencies
could result in the following issues: (1) investor perceptions are influenced by their current risk judgments concerning a certain financial instrument or the overall markets, and (2) individuals failure to discover and determine
the right investment such as selecting a stock or mutual
fund investment.
The Behavioral Finance Perspective: The

Significance of Information Overload
and the Role of Cognitive Factors
The question that should be asked regarding the assumptions of the EMH is Do investors process information this
logically, efficiently, properly, and neatly? Faust (1984)
made this observation about the poor judgment abilities of scientists and other experts in which cognitive
limitations . . . lead to frequent judgment error and . . . set
surprisingly harsh restrictions on the capacity to manage complex information and to make decisions (p. 3).
Statman (2005) provided this perspective, Investors were
never rational as defined by standard finance. They were
normal in 1945, and they remain normal today (p. 31).
In recent years, individual investors, investment professionals, and financial academics are sometimes overwhelmed by the amount of available information and the
abundant investment choices with the advancement of information technology and the Internet. These new forms
of Internet communication include online search engines,
chat rooms, bulletin boards, web sites, blogs, and online
trading. For investors, a direct link exists between the cognitive biases and heuristics (rules of thumb) espoused by
behavioral finance and the problems associated with information overload. Information overload is defined as occurring when the information processing demands on an
individuals time to perform interactions and internal calculations exceed the supply or capacity of time available
for such processing (Schick, Gordon, and Haka, 1990,
p. 199). In the future, this problem of information overload can only be expected to worsen when the following statistics in terms of the expected upsurge of available information attributed to the Internet Revolution are
considered:
300,000: Number of years has taken the world population to accumulate 12 exabytes of information (the
equivalent of 50,000 times the volume of the Library
of Congress), according to a study by the University of
California at Berkeley.
2.5: Number of years that experts predict it will take to
create the next 12 exabytes. (Macintyre, 2001, p. 112)
This observation concerning the relationship between the
tenets of behavioral finance and the problems of information overload is supported by Paredes (2003), who wrote:
91
Studies making up the field of behavioral finance show

that investing decisions can be influenced by various cognitive biases on the part of investors, analysts, and others . . . An extensive psychology literature
shows that people can become overloaded with information and make worse decisions with more information. In particular, studies show that when faced with
complicated tasks, such as those involving lots of information, people tend to adopt simplifying decision
strategies that require less cognitive effort but that are
less accurate than more complex decision strategies.
The basic intuition of information overload is that people might make better decisions by bringing a more
complex decision strategy to bear on less information
than by bringing a simpler decision strategy to bear on
more information. (p. 1)
Behavioral finance focuses on the theories and concepts

that influence the risk judgment and final decision-making
process of investors, which includes factors known as cognitive bias or mental mistakes (errors) (Ricciardi, 2004,
2006). As human beings we utilize specific mental mechanisms for processing and problem solving during our
decision making known as cognitive processes. Cognitive
processes are the mental skills that permit an individual to
comprehend and recognize the things surrounding you.
This process is taken a step further in terms of the cognitive factors and mental errors committed by investors.
Those in the behavioral finance camp study the understanding of how people think and identify errors made
in managing information known as heuristics (rules of
thumb) by all types of investors. Researchers in financial
psychology (behavioral finance) have conducted studies
that have shown humans are remarkably illogical regarding their money, finances, and investments. (See, for example, Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky [1982]; Plous [1993];
Piatelli-Palmarini [1994]; Olsen [1998]; Olsen and Khaki
[1998]; Shefrin [2000]; Shefrin [2001a]; Warneryd [2001];
Nofsinger [2002]; Bazerman [2005]; Shefrin [2005]; Adams
and Finn [2006]; Pompian [2006]; and Ricciardi [2006].)
In essence, decision making pertaining to risk frequently
departs from the standard finances assumptions of rationality and instead adheres to the ideas associated with
behavioral finances tenets of bounded rationality. Later in
this chapter, we examine the affective (emotional) aspects
of how investors make risk assessments and judgments
according to the principles of behavioral finance.
FINANCIAL AND INVESTMENT

DECISION MAKING: ISSUES OF
RATIONALITY
This section provides a general overview of the debate
between classical decision making (the proponents of standard finance) and behavioral decision making (the supporters of behavioral finance). Rational financial and investment decision making has been the cornerstone of
traditional (standard) finance since the 1960s. The standard finance literature advances the notion of rationality
in which individuals make logical and coherent financial
and investment choices. In contrast, behavioral finance
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researchers have supported the concept of behavioral

decision theory in which the concepts of bounded rationality, cognitive limitations, heuristics, and affect (feelings) are the central theoretical foundation. Customarily,
standard finance has rejected the notion that certain behavioral and psychological factors might influence and
prevent individuals from making optimal investment decisions. Curtis (2004) provided this assessment of both
schools of academic thought:
Modern portfolio theory represents the best learning
we have about how capital markets actually operate, while behavioral finance offers the best insights
into how investors actually behave. But markets dont
care what investors think of as risk, and hence idiosyncratic ideas about risk and what to do about
it are bound to harm our long-term investment results. On the other hand, Daniel Kahneman, Amos
Tversky, and their followers have demonstrated beyond doubt that we all harbor idiosyncratic ideas and
that we tend to act on them, regardless of the costs to
our economic welfare. (p. 21)
According to classical decision theory, the standard finance investor makes judgments within a clearly defined
set of circumstances, knows all possible alternatives and
consequences, and selects the optimum solution. The discipline of standard finance has advanced and flourished
on four basic premises in terms of rational behavior:
1. Investors make rational (optimal) decisions.
2. Investors objectives are entirely financial in nature, in
which they are assumed to maximize wealth.
3. Individuals are unbiased in their expectations regarding the future.
4. Individuals act in their own best (self) interests.
Classical decision theory has often been described as
the basic model of how investors process information
and make final investment decisions. According to Statman (1999), an attractive aspect of the standard finance
perspective is it uses a minimum of tools to build a
unified theory intended to answer all the questions of
finance (p. 19). Thus, by advocating rationality, standard finance researchers have been able to create influential theories such as modern portfolio theory (MPT) and
EMH. At the same time, these researchers have been able
to develop effective risk analysis and investment tools
such as the arbitrage pricing theory (APT), the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), and the Black-Scholes option
pricing model in which investors can value financial securities and provide analysis in an attempt to predict the expected risk and return relationship for specific investment
products. Nevertheless, an extensive debate has ensued
about the validity of rational choice (that is, issues of rationality) between the disciplines of economics and psychology in works by Arrow (1982), Hogarth and Reder (1986),
Antonides (1996), Conlisk (1996), Schwartz (1998), and
Carrillo and Brocas (2004). According to Arrow (1982), the
hypotheses of rationality have been under attack for empirical falsity almost as long as they have been employed
in economics (p. 1).
Psychologists from the branches of cognitive and experimental psychology have made the argument that the
basic assumptions of classical decision theory are incorrect since individuals often act in a less than fully rational manner. According to the assumptions of behavioral
decision making, the behavioral finance investor makes
judgments in relation to a problem that is not clearly
defined, has limited knowledge of possible outcomes
and their consequences, and chooses a satisfactory outcome. The disciplines of behavioral finance and economics
were founded on the principles of bounded rationality by
Simon (1956) in which a person utilizes a modified version
of rational choice that takes into account knowledge limitations, cognitive issues, and emotional factors. Singer and
Singer (1985) described the difference between two sets of
decision makers from this viewpoint, economists seek to
explain the aggregate behavior of markets, psychologists
try to describe and explain actual behavior of individuals
(p. 113). A noteworthy criticism of standard finance was
offered by Skubic and McGoun (2002), for a discipline
having individual choice as one of its fundamental tenets,
finance surprisingly pays little attention to the individual
(p. 478).
The Standard Finance Viewpoint:

Classical Decision Theory
Within the fields of finance and economics, there is still an
ongoing debate relating to the subject of rationality. As explained earlier in this chapter, traditional economics and
standard finance are based on the classical model of rational economic decision making. In general, standard finance assumes that all individuals are wealth maximizers.
In other words, an investor is considered rational if that
person selects the most preferred choice, customarily defined as maximizing an individuals utility or value function. This rational investment decision maker is assumed
to maximize profits, possess complete knowledge, and
capitalize on his or her own economic well-being. Moreover, rational behavior described by the classical model
of decision making employs a well-structured judgment
process based on the maximization of value, a painstaking and all-inclusive search for all information, and an
in-depth analysis of alternatives. Classical decision theory makes the assumption that an individual makes wellinformed systematic decisions which are in their own selfinterest and the decision maker is acting in a world of
complete certainty. March and Shapira (1987), provide the
following assessment:
In classical decision theory, risk is most commonly concerned as reflecting variation in the distribution of possible outcomes, their likelihoods, and their subjective
values. Risk is measured either by nonlinearities in the
revealed utility for money or by the variance of the
probability distribution of possible gains and losses associated with a particular alternative. (p. 1404)
Under the tenets of rational behavior, an investor is assumed to possess the skill to predict and consider all pertinent issues in making judgments and to have infinite
computational ability. Rationality suggests that individuals, firms, and markets are able to predict future events
without bias and with full access to relevant information
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at the time the decision is to be made. A person cannot

select a course of action that is not presented or cannot
consider information that is unknown.
Those in the camps of standard finance and conventional economics make the assumption that an individual
investor based on the notion of rational behavior
maximizes an objective value function under a specified
collection of restrictions in a world of perfect markets. The
basis of the work by Savage (1954) focused on expected
utility, which is the central aspect of the neoclassical
theory of rational economic behavior. Decisions are made
based on the following three assumptions: (1) within
a predetermined collection of objective outcomes and
parameters; (2) with (subjectively) known probability
distributions of outcomes for each option; and (3) in
such a way as to maximize the expected value of a given
utility function. Moreover, Doucouliagos (1994) described
three key notions of rationality, which are: (1) maximizing (optimizing) behavior; (2) the cognitive ability
to exercise rational choice; and (3) individualistic behavior and independent tastes and preferences (p. 877).
While Coughin commented, the neoclassical model
in economics is built on the concept of the economic
actor who is a rational calculator operating in a free and
competitive marketplace (1993, p. A8).
The optimal or normative approach to financial
decision-making has emphasized that rationality as the
foundation of standard finance theories and models such
as the EMH, modern portfolio theory, the CAPM, and the
dividend discount model. These theories and concepts
are based on the notion that investors behave in a rational, predictable, and an unbiased manner. Ricciardi and
Simon (2000a) provided this standpoint on the judgment
process:
Investment decisions regarding an individual stock or
within the entire portfolio with the objective of maximizing their profits for a minimum level of risk. Rational investors will only make an investment decision
(buy, hold, or sell) in a systematic or logical manner after they have applied some sort of accepted investment
approach such as fundamental analysis. (p. 7)
The assumption made is that investors utilize conventional investment techniques or financial models that have
an established historical presence.
The Behavioral Finance Perspective:

Behavioral Decision Theory
Behavioral economics and financial psychology have
explored various degrees of rationality and irrational behavior in which individuals and groups may act or behave differently in the real world, departing from the
constrained assumptions of rationality supported by the
standard finance literature. The alternative disciplines
of behavioral finance, economics, and accounting depart
from the purely traditional statistical and mathematical
models in which rationality (that is, classical decision
theory) has been the centerpiece of the accepted theory
across a spectrum of different disciplines (e.g., standard
finance, conventional economics, traditional accounting).
93
The alternative perspective is known as behavioral decision theory (BDT), which has an extensive academic history within the social sciences such as cognitive and
experimental psychology that has provided a more descriptive and realistic model of human behavior. The
basis of this theory is that individuals systematically
infringe upon (violate) the normative tenets of economic (finance) rationality by: (1) miscalculating (underestimating or overestimating) probabilities, and (2)
making choices between different options based on
noneconomic (nonfinancial) factors. (See, for example,
Edwards [1954], Slovic [1972], Slovic, Fischhoff, and
Lichtenstein [1977], Einhorn and Hogarth [1981], Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky [1982], Slovic, Lichtenstein,
and Fischhoff [1988], Weber [1994], Gigerenzer and Goldstein [1996], Mellers, Schwartz, and Cooke [1998], Mullainathan and Thaler [2000], Shefrin [2001a], Warneryd
[2001], Gowda and Fox [2002], Bazerman [2005], Barberis
and Thaler [2005], Coleman [2006], and Taylor-Gooby and
Zinn [2006].)
BDT explains how the human aspects of decision making affect individuals such as the measurement of common systematic errors that result in individual investors
and professional investors departing from rational behavior. In its simplest form, the behavioral decision maker
is influenced by what he or she perceives in a given situation, event, or circumstance. For this discussion, one
of the substantive aspects of BDT is the significant role
of bounded rationality. Bounded rationality proposes that
decision makers are limited by their values and unconscious reflexes, skills, and habits as identified by Simon
(1947, 1956, and 1997). In effect, bounded rationality is
the premise that economic rationality has its limitations,
especially during the judgment process under conditions
of risk and uncertainty. According to Ricciardi (2006), investors would identify more with the tenets of bounded
rationality proposed by behavioral finance instead of the
limited constraints of rationality espoused by standard
finance.
According to behavioral finance decision theory (the
descriptive model), an investor displays cognitive bias,
heuristics (rules of thumb), and affective (emotional) factors that have been disregarded by the assumptions of
rationality under classical finance decision theory (the normative model). Shefrin (2000) clarifies the difference between cognitive and emotional issues, cognitive aspects
concern the way people organize their information, while
the emotional aspects deal with the way people feel as they
register information (p. 29). Olsen (2001) provided the
following perspective of the behavioral finance decisionmaking process:
r Financial decision makers preferences tend to be mul-
tifaceted, open to change and often formed during the

decision process itself.
r Financial decision makers are satisficers and not optimizers.
r Financial decision makers are adaptive in the sense
that the nature of the decision and environment within
which it is made influence the type of the process utilized.
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r Financial decision makers are neurologically predis-
posed to incorporate affect (emotion) into the decision

process. (p. 158)
Behavioral finance is based on the assumption that individuals are sometimes irrational or only quasi-rational
(Thaler, 1994), and they are often inconsistent in terms
of strict rationality in their investment decisions relative
to standard finances notion of rationality. Additionally,
behavioral finance advocates believe that investors make
decisions at different levels of rationality or satisfaction
according to Mullainathan and Thaler (2000) and individuals should realize the importance of understanding the
notion of bounded rationality as indicated by Barberis and
Thaler (2005) and Bazerman (2005). Investor judgment is
influenced by internal and external factors such as: (1)
the psychology of other individuals or groups within the
marketplace (e.g., the notion of crowd psychology, herd
behavior) and (2) the favorable or unfavorable memory
of a prior financial or investment decision (this is dependent on whether the final outcome of the judgment was a
success (gain) or failure (loss)).
A well-established premise (assumption) in behavioral
finance is that investors make decisions according to the
principles of prospect theory. Prospect theory emphasizes that there are lasting biases affected by cognitive
and affective (emotional) processes that influence an individuals decisions under specific circumstances of risktaking behavior and uncertainty. Schwartz (1998) stated
that prospect theory makes the assumption an investor
will assess outcomes in terms of gains or losses in relation to a specific reference point instead of the final
value within their overall investment portfolio. Bernstein (1997) commented that prospect theory discovered behavior patterns that had never been recognized
by proponents of rational decision-making. . . . First, emotion often destroys the self-control that is essential to
rational decision-making. Second, people are unable to
understand fully what they are dealing with (p. 24).
Investors function in a world in which they are overconfident, hate to lose money, and at times, are extremely greedy, though all this is often in a predictable
manner. Investors have revealed feelings of a cynical nature such as dread, worry, and procrastination,
whereas other finance individuals have demonstrated
a hopeful state of mind of pleasure, happiness, and
grandiosity.
The Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon criticized the
discipline of standard economics for its reliance and support of the premise of rationality. In 1947, he offered this
extensive criticism on the limits of standard rationality
because it falls short of actual behavior in at least three
aspects:
1. Rationality requires complete knowledge and anticipation of the consequences that will follow on each
choice. In fact, knowledge of consequences is always
fragmentary.
2. Since the consequences lie in the future imagination
must supply the lack of experienced feeling in attaching value to them. But values can be only imperfectly
anticipated.
3. Rationality requires a choice among all possible alternative behaviors. In actual behavior, only a very few
of all these possible alternatives ever come to mind.
(Simon, 1947, p. 81)
Furthermore, Simon (1956) rejected rational models of
choice for ignoring situational and personal limitations,
such as time and cognitive ability. In the 1950s, Simon
developed and advanced the notion of bounded rationality that explored the psychological aspects that influence
the economic judgment process. Kaufman, Lewin, Mincer,
and Cummings (1989) provided this portrayal of a more
realistic and practical person from the social sciences:
A textbook description of behavioral man would run
along the following lines: individuals typically do not
maximize, but rather select the first alternative outcome that satisfies their aspiration level, and because
there are severe limits to information and knowledge
of alternative outcomes, people act on the basis of a
simplified, ill-structured mental abstraction of the real
world-an abstraction that is influenced by personal perceptions and past experiences. Although this model of
man is largely foreign to economists, in various guises
it underlies much of the industrial relations-oriented
research done by scholars in personnel, organizational
behavior, and sociology (p. 76).
Simons work focused on the idea that the decision

maker possessed limited information (knowledge) and
did not always seek the best potential choice because of
limited resources and personal inclinations. In essence, an
investor would satisfice financial utility rather than maximize it, sometimes accepting a satisfactory investment
alternative rather than the optimal choice (that is, maximize gains and minimize losses). Regarding this matter,
behavioral finance departs from one or more of the assumptions of classical decision-making underlying the
theory of rational choice (that is, the standard finance
viewpoint). Rather than maximizing expected utility, investors attempt to find answers by what Simon labels
satisficing and can be described as the following:
A method for making a choice from a set of alternatives
encountered sequentially when one does not know
much about the possibilities ahead of time. In such
situations, there may be no optimal solution for when
to stop searching for further alternatives . . . satisficing
takes the shortcut of setting an adjustable aspiration
level and ending the search for alternatives as soon as
one is encountered that exceeds the aspiration level.
(Gigerenzer and Todd, 1999, p. 13)
Academic models of judgment and decision making

have to take into account known limitations concerning
our minds capacities. Since human beings have cognitive
limitations, we must utilize approximate methods to handle complex decisions. These techniques include cognitive
processes that largely prevent the need for further information investigations, heuristics (e.g., mental shortcuts)
that direct our search and decide when it should end,
and simple judgment rules that utilize the information
found as implicitly. Thaler (2000) divulged this viewpoint
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in terms the evolution of economic man:

My predictions can be summarized quite easily: I am
predicting that Homo Economicus will evolve into
Homo Sapiens. This prediction shouldnt be an outlandish one. It seems logical that basing descriptive
economic models on more realistic conceptions of economic agents is bound to increase the explanation
power of the models. Still, a conservative economist
might (emotionally) scoff: If this were a better way of
doing economics, we would already be doing it that
way! Why arent all my predictions already true? And
why should I expect things to change? . . . we can hope
that new scholars in other disciplines can do for economics what cognitive psychologists such as Kahneman and Tversky have already done: offer us useful
findings and theories that are relatively easy to incorporate into economic models (p. 140).
Later research extended Simons initial ideas on

bounded rationality in terms of utilizing straightforward
judgments known as heuristics (rules of thumb) in order
to make complex decisions was based on the contributions of Kahneman and Tversky (1974) and Kahneman,
Slovic, and Tversky (1982). Payne, Bettman, and Johnson
(1993) established that simple decision strategies are utilized to reduce a set of choices before implementing a
more multifaceted approach or trade-off strategy to the
remaining options (alternatives). These divergences from
classical decision-making theory and the assumptions of
rationality are all too apparent in terms of the extensive
list of items that influence a persons perception of risk
such as heuristics, issues of overconfidence, the notion of
prospect theory, the influence of loss aversion, the concept of representativeness, issues of framing, the topic of
anchoring, the notion of familiarity bias, the factors of perceived control, the issues of expert knowledge, the role of
affect (feelings), and the influence of worry. Later in this
chapter, we will discuss theories and concepts of behavioral finance that influence the decision makers judgment
process and conflict with the tenets of rationality espoused
by those in the standard finance camp.
In summary, Hirshleifer (2001) provided a remarkable
discussion of the widespread criticisms from both sides of
the debate on the issue of rationality. He revealed weaknesses argued by the two schools of academic thought
pertaining to standard finance and behavioral finance. The
following are criticisms of the standard finance viewpoint
or what Hirshleifer termed the objection to fully rational
approach:
r Standard finance theory of rationality involves imposr
r
r
r
r
sible capabilities of calculation.

Judgments are assumed to be objective and quantitative
within an investment setting.
The financial data and findings do not support the assumptions of rational choice.
Irrational investors and inefficient financial markets
should arbitrage away efficiently priced securities.
Investors according to the assumptions of irrationality
(e.g., bounded rationality) take on more risk and become
wealthier.
Accurate investors will obtain the knowledge and experience (learn) to make bad investment judgments.
95
The following are criticisms of the behavioral finance perspective or what Hirshleifer coined the objection to psychological approach:
r The so-called behavioral biases (e.g., the role of cognitive
limitations, the tools of heuristics) are unscientific.
r The decision-making process involves factors that are
subjective and qualitative in nature.
r Experiments in laboratory settings that produce sup-
posed behavioral ideas and findings are not significant.
r Rational investors and the financial markets should ar-
bitrage away mispriced securities.
r Investors according to the assumptions of rationality
make better judgments and acquire greater wealth.
r Confused individuals will obtain the skills and abilities
(learn) to make good investment decisions.

This section has provided a brief discussion of the ongoing debate between classical decision making (the standard finance viewpoint) and behavioral decision theory
(the behavioral finance perspective). For a more in-depth
perspective of the rationality debate consult this sample
of papers by Slovic, Finucane, Peters, and MacGregor
(2002a), (2002b), and (2004) that offered a psychological perspective in terms of the role of affect (emotions)
and rational behavior; Rubinstein (2001) provided a standard finance viewpoint of market rationality; and Barberis and Thaler (2005) discussed the subject of managerial and bounded irrationality as part of their extensive literature review of the discipline of behavioral
finance.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN THEORIES

AND CONCEPTS FROM
BEHAVIORAL FINANCE THAT
INFLUENCE AN INDIVIDUALS
PERCEPTION OF RISK?
As explained earlier in this chapter, an extensive number
of research studies within the social sciences have demonstrated various factors that influence a persons perception
of risk for different types of risky behaviors and hazardous
activities. Rohrmann (1999) documented that the investigation of risk judgments (the principal foundation of risk
research) has focused on these six main issues:
1. Risk acceptance issues for individual versus societal
concerns.
2. The fundamental aspects of how information is processed (that is, the influence of heuristics and cognitive
biases).
3. The connection between perceived risk versus actual
risk in terms of different categories of hazardous situations and activities.
4. The issue of personality traits and demographic differences among a diverse population of subjects and
respondents.
5. The findings that risk perception studies have been
linked to statistical data on hazardous activities and
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then, applied to the development of risk communication programs for experts and the general public.
6. The central role of cultural factors among an international research sample for a variety of different
countries.
Ricciardi (2004) offers a comprehensive list of behavioral
risk characteristics (see Table 10.1) that were examined by
risk perception researchers in behavioral finance and accounting within a financial and investment setting. Table
10.1 provides the specific behavioral risk indicators that
were examined by researchers in these two disciplines:
(1) 12 risk behavioral attributes (characteristics) within
behavioral accounting based on 12 research studies for
the time period of 1975 to 2003, and (2) 111 behavioral
risk indicators within behavioral finance for 71 endeavors for the time period of 1969 to 2002. However, below
we will only provide a brief discussion of the prevalent
cognitive issues and affective (emotional) factors of behavioral finance that influence a persons perception of
risk including: heuristics, overconfidence, prospect theory, loss aversion, representativeness, framing, anchoring,
familiarity bias, perceived control, expert knowledge, affect (feelings), and worry.
Heuristics
Kahneman, Slovic, and Tversky (1982) noted that when
individuals are faced with a complex judgment such as
a statistical probability, frequency or incomplete information; various subjects utilize a limited number of heuristics
that reduce the decision to a simpler task. Heuristics are
simple and general rules a person employs to solve a specific category of problems under conditions that involve a
high degree of risk-taking behavior and uncertainty. Myers (1989) provided this viewpoint on heuristics, all of
us have a repertoire of these strategies based on bits of
knowledge we have picked up, rules we have learned, or
hypotheses that worked in the past (p. 286). These strategies known as heuristics in the formal sense are rules
of thumbs that are considered very common in all types
of decision-making situations. Furthermore, heuristics are
a cognitive tool for reducing the time of the decisionmaking process for an individual investor or investment
professional. In essence, heuristics are mental shortcuts
or strategies derived from our past experience that get us
where we need to go quickly, but at the cost of sending
us in the wrong direction (Ricciardi and Simon, 2001, p.
19) or introducing biases that result in over or underestimating the actual outcome. An investor utilizes heuristics
when given a narrow time frame in which he or she has
to assess difficult financial circumstances and investment
choices. Eventually, these mental processes (heuristics) result in the individual making investment errors based
on their intuitive judgments. Plous (1993) wrote:
For example, it is easier to estimate how likely an outcome is by using a heuristic than by tallying every past
occurrence of the outcome and dividing by the total
number of times the outcome could have occurred. In
most cases, rough approximations are sufficient (just as
people often satisfice rather than optimize). (p. 109)
The significance of heuristics in the domain of risktaking behavior and uncertainty has been a major source of
research within the area of judgment and decision making
in works by Tversky and Kahneman (1973), Kahneman,
Slovic, and Tversky (1982), Slovic (2000), and Gilovich,
Griffin, and Kahneman (2002). Two major types of factors
that have an affect on a persons perception of risk are the
availability heuristic and overconfidence as indicated by
Slovic, Fischhoff, and Lichtenstein (1979).
Availability Heuristic
One of the underlying principles of risk perception research has been the availability heuristic based on the
work of Tversky and Kahneman (1973). This heuristic is
utilized in order to judge the likelihood or frequency of
an event or occurrence. In various experiments in psychology, the findings have revealed individuals tend to be
biased by information that is easier to recall, influenced
by information that is vivid, well-publicized, or recent.
An individual that employs the availability heuristic will
be guided to judge the degree of risk of a behavior or hazardous activity as highly probable or frequent if examples
of it are easy to remember or visualize. Furthermore, the
availability heuristic provides the inclination for an individual to form their decisions on information that is easily
available to them. The main issues that have involved the
availability heuristic are (1) activities that induce emotions, (2) tasks that are intensely dramatic, and (3) actions
that have occurred more recently have a propensity to be
more accessible in our recent memory. Schwartz (1998)
described the availability heuristic in this manner:
Biases may arise because the ease which specific instances can be recalled from memory affects judgments
about the relative frequency and importance of data.
This leads to overestimation of the probability of wellpublicized or dramatic events . . . or recent events along
with the underestimation of less recent, publicized or
dramatic events . . . A prominent example of the availability bias is the belief of most people that homicides
(which are highly publicized) are more common than
suicides, but, in fact, the reverse is true. (p. 64)
Another example of the application of the availability

heuristic is a strong majority of individuals (subjects) are
more likely to express or experience a high degree of
anxiety (an increase in perceived risk) over flying in an
airplane than driving in an automobile. This increased
anxiety (fear) among the general public towards flying in
airplanes occurs because of the extensive media coverage
of the few major airline accidents ultimately increases an
individuals perception of the risk, whereas an individual feels safer driving in an automobile. This is because
an individual has the perception of control of the risky
situation or task known as personal control. This conflicts
with classical decision theory (that is, the standard finance
perspective) since the rational choice (decision) is to fly in
an airplane rather than to drive in a car if the person
only considers and examines the statistical data on safety.
The safety statistics reveal the number of automobile accidents and deaths from driving a car is far greater than
the number of airplane crashes and deaths from airline
accidents.
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Table 10.1 Risk Perception Studies from Behavioral Finance and Accounting:
A Master List of Behavioral Risk Characteristics (Indicators)
Behavioral Accounting: 12 Behavioral Risk Attributes for 12 Research Studies
1. Familiarity factor or issues of familiarity (influence of stock
name vs. withholding name of company)
2. Search for additional information
3. Worry
4. Voluntary
5. Control
6. Chance of a catastrophic outcome
7. Familiarity/Newness (new or old risk)

8. Immediacy (immediate or overtime)
9. Knowledge by management
10. Knowledge by participant
11. Loss outcome
12. Gain outcome
Behavioral Finance: 111 Behavioral Risk Indicators for 71 Research Endeavors

1. Quality of the stock
2. Financial loss
3. Concern for others
4. Optimism (Issues of confidence)
5. Complexity
6. Prestige of investment ownership
7. Personal attention requirement
8. Personal attention allowed
9. Locus of control
10. Potential for a large loss
11. Potential for a gain
12. Investors knowledge
13. Objective knowledge factor
14. Worry factor
15. Confidence in own knowledge
16. Control
17. Knowledge
18. Catastrophic potential
19. Dread
20. Voluntariness
21. Equity
22. Novelty
23. Regret theory
24. Uncertainty
25. Framing
26. Multiple reference points
27. Prior Gains
28. Prior Losses
29. Degree of internalization
30. Frequency
31. Degree of externalization
32. Frequency
33. Psychological risk characteristic
34. Financial knowledge
35. Outcome uncertainty
36. Potential gains and losses
37. Perceived safety
38. Situational framing
39. Personal expectations,
40. Perceived control
41. Risk-seeking behavior
42. Adequacy of regulation
43. Attention
44. Knowledge factor
45. Likelihood of losing money
46. Time horizon
47. Typicality
48. Anxiety
49. Familiarity
50. Postponement of losses
51. Clarity of information
52. Independence of investment
53. Trust
54. Availability of information
55. Catastrophic risk
56. Ambiguity (uncertainty)
57. Confidence
58. The level of investment
59. Degree of hazard (and gain)
60. Chance of incurring a large loss
61. Economic expectations
62. Financial knowledge index
63. Chance or incurring a large gain
64. Locus of control index
65. Money ethics variable
66. Law of small numbers factor
67. Illusion of control
68. Overconfidence
69. Ability of competitors
70. Possibility of a loss
71. Magnitude of a loss
72. Gathering more information
73. Control over situation
74. Drawing on expertise
75. Consulting with colleagues
76. Sharing responsibility
77. Reputation
78. Seriousness
79. Losses delayed
80. Not known to investors
81. Not known to experts
82. Lose all money
83. Adverse effect on economy
84. Losses unobservable
85. Complex to understand
86. Unacceptable sales pressure
87. Unsound advice
88. Poor investor protection
89. No regulation
90. Unethical
91. Monitoring time
92. Information prior to purchase
93. Ruin
94. Perceived outcome control
95. Gain (favorable position)
96. Loss (unfavorable position)
97. Self-efficacy
98. Knowledge of investment principles
99. Control the possible returns of the decision
100. Control the risks involved in the problem
101. Personal consideration of making the decision
102. Familiarity assets vs. unfamiliarity assets
103. Taking more time to reach a decision
104. Reducing the number of decisions
105. Concern for below-target returns
106. Ruinous loss (potential for large loss)
107. Acquaintances who invest in instrument
108. Divergence of opinion (uncertainty)
109. Inability to estimate total amount of potential loss
110. Perceived personal control (Internal locus of control)
111. Uncertainty measure (lack of information, inability to
assign probabilities with degree of confidence)
97
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Overconfidence
Overconfidence is another characteristic that influences
a persons risk perception since there are many ways
in which an individual tends to be overconfident about
their decisions in terms of risk-taking behavior. Within
the behavioral finance literature, overconfidence is one of
the most documented biases according to Daniel and Titman (2000). Confidence can be described as the belief in
oneself and ones abilities with full conviction whereas
overconfidence can be taken a step further in which overconfidence takes this self-reliant behavior to an extreme
(Ricciardi and Simon, 2000a, p. 13). As human beings, we
have an inclination to overestimate our own skills, abilities, and predictions for success. Myers (1989) provided
this viewpoint on the decision making process:
Our use of quick and easy heuristics when forming
judgments and our bias toward seeking confirmation
rather than refutation of our ideas can give rise to the
overconfidence phenomenon, an overestimation of the
accuracy of our current knowledge. (p. 293)
A classic study in psychology by Fischhoff, Slovic, and

Lichtenstein (1977) explored the issue of overconfidence.
They provided a group of subjects (individuals) with a
collection of knowledge-based questions. Each of the individuals in the research endeavor had to evaluate a set of
predetermined questions in which the answers were absolute. Nevertheless, the participants in the study did not
necessarily have knowledge of the answers to the survey
questions. For each answer, a subject was expected to provide a percentage or score that measured their degree of
confidence in terms of whether the person thought their
answer was accurate. In summary, Ricciardi and Simon
(2000a) provided this interpretation of the study:
The results of this study demonstrated a widespread
and consistent tendency of overconfidence. For instance, people who gave incorrect answers to 10 percent of the questions (thus the individual should have
rated themselves at 90 percent) instead predicted with
100 percent degree of confidence their answers were
correct. In addition, for a sample of incorrect answers,
the participants rated the likelihood of their responses
being incorrect at 1:1000, 1:10,000 and even 1:1,000,000.
The difference between the reliability of the replies and
the degree of overconfidence was consistent throughout the study. (p. 4)
Ultimately, individuals are very confident in their

choices formed under the rules of heuristics and are considerably inattentive in terms of the exact manner in which
their decision was formed.
Another category of overconfident behavior is the notion of the It wont happen to me bias. In this instance,
individuals tend to consider themselves invulnerable to
specific risky activities or events on an individual basis,
while they would readily concede to these risks on a societal level. For instance, most individuals have a tendency
to believe they are better than the average driver, more
likely to live past the age of 80, and are less likely to be
injured by consumer goods according to Slovic, Fischhoff,
and Lichtenstein (1980). While Strong (2006) provided this
viewpoint on the psychology of overconfidence, most
people think they are . . . above average in intelligence, and

most investors think they are above-average stock pickers (p. 278).
Within the risk perception literature, this overconfident
behavior extends to expert individuals (e.g., safety inspectors) in which they ignore or underestimate the odds of a
risky behavior or hazardous activity. When experts are
required to rely on intuitive judgment, rather than on
statistical data, they are prone to making the same variety of errors as novices (e.g., the general public). Slovic,
Fischhoff, and Lichtenstein (1980) pointed out the existence of this expert overconfident behavior in the domain
of technology occurred for several reasons such as failure
to contemplate the way human mistakes influence technological systems, the notion of overconfidence in scientific
knowledge, inattentiveness to how technological systems
perform together as a whole, and failure to predict how
people respond to safety procedures.
Prospect Theory
The seminal work by Kahneman and Tversky (1979)
advocated a new theory under conditions of risk-taking
behavior and uncertainty known as prospect theory.
Olsen (1997) noted prospect theory gives weight to the
cognitive limitations of human decision makers (p. 63).
Under the assumptions of prospect theory, an investor
departs from the notion of rationality espoused by classical decision theory (the standard finance perspective)
and instead an individual makes decisions on the basis
of bounded rationality advocated by behavioral decision
theory (the behavioral finance viewpoint). Kahneman
and Tverskys prospect theory is based on the notion
that people are loss averse in which they are more
concerned with losses than gains. In effect, an investor
on an individual basis will assign more significance to
avoiding a loss than to achieving a gain.
Investors utilize a compartment in their brains or a type
of mental bookkeeping during the decision-making process. For instance, an investor individualizes each financial decision into a separate account in their mind known
as mental accounting. This investor has an inclination to
focus on a specific reference point (e.g., the purchase price
for a stock or the original stock investment cost) and their
desire is to close each account with a profit (gain) for
that single transaction. Heilar, Lonie, Power, and Sinclair
(2001) described prospect theory from this perspective:
This theory separates the decision choice process into
two stages; in the first stage the menu of available
choices is framed and edited in accordance with the
decision makers prior perceptions; in the second stage
these prospects are evaluated in relation to the decision makers subjective assessment of their likelihood
of occurrence. The prospect with the highest expected
outcome is selected. (p. 11)
A major component of prospect theory is known as the

value function (see Figure 10.2). The individual value with
respect to gains and losses are in comparison to a reference
point in which the values for negative deviations from
the reference point will be greater than the values placed
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Value
Profit Area:
Assets with profits
are cashed (sold)
too early
Losses
Loss Area:
Assets with losses
are kept (held) for
too long
Gains
Reference Point
Figure 10.2 Prospect TheoryA Hypothetical Value

Function
on positive deviations. Investors treat outcomes as losses
or gains from a subjective reference in two aspects: (1)
people are risk averse with their investments which are
performing well (that is, investment gains) and as a result
they have an inclination to cash in their profits too early
and (2) individuals are risk seekers for losses (that is, loss
averse) and in order to avoid a realized loss they will take a
gamble (by avoiding to sell the asset) that could result in an
even greater loss. Furthermore, the argument is made that
individuals weigh probabilities in a non-linear manner:
small probabilities are overvalued (over-weighted) while
changes in middle-range probabilities are undervalued
(underweighted). Kahneman (2003) commented:
The shift from wealth to changes of wealth as carriers
of utility is significant because of a property of preferences we later labeled loss aversion . . . Loss aversion is
manifest in the extraordinary reluctance to accept risk
that is observed when people are offered a gamble on
the toss of a coin. Most will reject a gamble in which
they might lose $20, unless they are offered more than
$40 if they win. (p. 726)
For instance, in the actual experiment by Kahneman and

Tversky (1979) subjects were asked to evaluate a pair of
gambles and to choose one of the options.
Experiment 1: Consider a decision between these two
alternatives:
Choice A: A certain reward of $7,500 or
Choice B: An 80% chance of gaining $10,000, with a 20%
likelihood of being paid $ 0.
Question: Which choice would give you the best prospect
to capitalize on your profits?
A high percentage of individuals (that is, strong majority
of subjects) selected the first option (Choice A), which is in
effect the sure gain. Kahneman and Tversky found that
a large percentage of individuals happen to be risk averse
when presented with the prospect of an investment profit.
Accordingly, people selected Choice A which is the definite gain of $7,500 and this is considered the less preferred
option. If individuals had selected Choice B, their general
99
outlook on an aggregate basis would be a better option

since there is a larger increase in wealth of $8,000. Within
a portfolio of investments, the result would be calculated
by: ($10,000 80%) + (0 + 20%) = $8,000. Most people
are bothered (that is, may feel dread or worry) by the 20%
likelihood in Choice B of a monetary result of zero (nothing). This alternative demonstrates the notion that diverse
categories of investors prefer financial options that offer
a high degree of certainty such as a lump sum of cash
and have an aversion toward ambiguity (uncertainty).
An additional experiment (illustration) incorporates the
expectations of losing money together with the uncertainty associated with this entire process.
Experiment 2: Consider the following options:
Choice C: A realized (fixed) loss of $7,500 or
Choice D: An 80% chance of losing $10,000, with a 20%
possibility of losing no money at all.
Question: Which selection would give you the best opportunity to minimize your losses?
Most participants preferred Choice D because the
prospect for a 20% chance of not losing any money despite the fact that this choice has more risk since within
a portfolio of investments the result would be an $8,000
loss. Therefore, as indicated by standard finance (that is,
tenets of classical decision theory), Choice C is the acceptable (rational) decision. Curran stated, because peoples
horror of loses exceeds even their aversion to risks, say
Kahneman and Tversky, they are willing to take
riskseven bad risks (1986, p. 64). Lastly, Naughton
(2002) offered the following perspective on prospect theory: Their work revolutionized the field of financial economics by proposing that behavioural biases in general,
and prospect theory in particular are better explanations
of how decisions are made in risky situations (p. 110).
Loss Aversion
Olsen (2000) noted Early research, using utility-based
models, suggested that investment risk could be measured
by return distribution moments such as variance or skewness (p. 50). In contrast, other researchers explored the
subjective aspects of risk and discovered that individuals
are loss averse. As explained earlier, a central assumption
of prospect theory is the notion of loss aversion in which
people designate more significance to losses than they allocate to gains. The notion of loss aversion is contrary to
the tenets of modern portfolio theory since the discipline
of standard finance makes the assumption that a loss and
gain is equivalent (identical). In other words, according
to basic statistical analysis, a loss is simply a negative
profit and is thus, weighted in the same manner. From an
investment standpoint, during the decision-making process, many investors appear thin-skinned and vulnerable
to losses, and highly determined not to realize a financial
loss. In some instances, investors exhibit a tendency or increased readiness to take risks in the desire of reducing or
avoiding the entire loss (see Figure 10.2).
A main premise of loss aversion is that an individual is
less likely to sell an investment at a loss than to sell an
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investment that has increased in value even if expected

returns are held constant. Several academic experiments
in psychology have demonstrated that for some investors
a loss bothers them twice as much in absolute terms than
the pleasure from an equal gain. For example, an investor
that loses $10,000 on a specific stock feels twice as much
pain than if that person had a $10,000 profit (reward) on
the same exact investment. Mendintz (1999) commented
well do foolish things to avoid finalizing and accepting
losses that have already happeneda phenomenon many
of us know as throwing good money after bad. So well
spend hundreds of dollars to fix an old car not because it
makes economic sense, but because weve already spent
a lot on it (p. 81). These errors in judgment often lead
or result in an investor not selling their losing investment
even though it is the correct financial decision.
Representativeness
Another important heuristic that affects a persons perception of risk is known as representativeness. Behavioral
finance refers to a fundamental mental mechanism that
we set in motion because of abstract rules known as mental shortcuts that are part of the judgment process based
on the work of Tversky and Kahneman (1971). Decision
makers manifesting this heuristic are willing to develop
broad, and sometimes very detailed generalizations about
a person or phenomenon based on only a few attributes
of the person or phenomenon (Busenitz, 1999, p. 330).
Human beings utilize mental shortcuts that make it complicated to analyze new investment information accurately and without bias. Representativeness reflects the
belief that a member of a category (e.g., risky behavior or
hazardous activity) should resemble others in the same
class and that, in effect, should resemble the cause that
produced it. Ricciardi and Simon (2001) provided this perspective:
Representativeness is but one of a number of heuristics
that people use to render complex problems manageable. The concept of representativeness proposes that
humans have an automatic inclination to make judgments based on the similarity of items, or predict future
uncertain events by taking a small portion of data and
drawing a holistic conclusion. (p. 21)
The representativeness heuristic is based on the notion

that we tend to form an opinion in terms of events by how
much they resemble other events which we are familiar. In
so doing, we ignore relevant facts that should be included
in our decision-making process, but are not. For instance,
investors frequently predict the performance of an initial
public offering by relating it to the previous investments
success (gain) or failure (loss). In some circumstances,
shortcuts are beneficial, but in the case of investment decisions, they tend to render the persons judgments unreceptive to change. Some investors feel that this approach to
the judgment process is so accurate; therefore, the desired
outcome is irrefutable. This sometimes leads an investor to
arrive at a conclusion quite different from what he or she
intended and different from the desirable and correct conclusion. The noted scholar Piatelli-Palmarini (1994) made
the point that the individual investor does not even real-
ize that this thought process brought them someplace else.

Our brain assumes that situations with similar traits are,
in fact, identical when in reality they reveal a tendency to
be quite different. Eaton (2000) illustrated the importance
of this concept for investors:
The effect of representativeness in investment decisions
can be seen when certain shared qualities are used to
classify stocks. Two companies that report poor results
may be both classified as poor companies, with bad
management and unexciting prospects. This may not
be true, however. A tendency to label stocks as either
bad-to-own or good-to-own based on a limited number
of characteristics will lead to errors when other relevant
characteristics are not considered. (p. 5)
Busenitz (1999) attempted to determine the risk-taking

behavior of entrepreneurs who begin new business ventures as it relates to the area of cognitive psychology and
decision making. He suggested that entrepreneurial risktaking behavior can be attributed to the notion that entrepreneurs utilize heuristics and biases more than other
types of business executives, which is likely to result in
them perceiving a lesser amount of risk in a given decision circumstance. Busenitz asked two groups to fill out
a questionnaire: entrepreneurs (124 usable responses) and
corporate managers of large firms (95 usable responses) by
measuring specific risk characteristics including overconfidence, representativeness, risk propensity, age, and education. The findings revealed that entrepreneurs certainly
utilized representativeness (that is, they demonstrated a
inclination to over generalize from a few factors or observations) more in their decision making practices and
were more overconfident than senior managers of large
organizations.
Framing
Another indicator that influences a persons perception of
risk is the format (frame) in which a situation or choice
is presented. A person reveals framing behavior when an
indistinguishable or equivalent depiction of an outcome
or item results in a different final decision or inclination.
Kahneman and Tversky (1979) utilized framing effects
from two significant perspectives within the decision making process: (1) the environment or context of the decision
and (2) the format in which the question is framed or
worded. Essentially, the framing process is an evaluation
of the degree of rationality in making decisions by constructing an examination of whether the equivalent question provided to an individual in two distinct but equal
means will generate the same response. Duchon, Ashmos,
and Dunegan (1991) presented this depiction of framing:
Decision makers evaluate negative and positive outcomes differently. Their response to losses is more extreme than their response to gains which suggests, psychologically, the displeasure of a loss is greater than
the pleasure of gaining the same amount. Thus, decision makers are inclined to take risks in the face of sure
losses, and not take risks in the face of sure gains. (p.
15)
This next framing example is informative for understanding how individuals make decisions in terms of their
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investments. For example, consider the distinctive impressions presented by these two options:
Option A: Would you invest all your money in a new business if you had a 50% chance of succeeding brilliantly?
Option B: Would you invest all your money in a new
business if you had a 50% chance of failing miserably?
According to Weber (1991), The success-frame in A
makes it seem more appealing than the failure-framed
B, although the probability of success versus failure is the
same for both (p. 96). In most instances, people choose
the alternative that seems less risky which is Option A.
The explanation for the selection of Option A was that
this alternative provided the appearance that it is more
psychologically soothing and pleasing instead of Option
B as the best option. Research suggests that this concept
proves that people tend to default to a form of mental
sluggishness. We know we are biased, but we chose not
to correct our heuristic perceptions, according to Ricciardi
and Simon (2001, p. 24). Interestingly, an individual will
consent to the situation as offered and make no attempt
to reformulate it in a comparable and balanced manner
(Piatelli-Palmarini 1994).
Academic researchers have found that small changes in
the wording of judgments can have a prominent effect
on choice behavior. Subtle differences in how risks are
presented can have marked effects on how they are perceived (Slovic, Fischhoff, and Lichtenstein, 1982, p. 483).
Thus, framing effects (that is, the presentation of information) can be utilized to modify an individuals perception
of risk. For instance, Sitkin and Weingart (1995) investigated the association between a framing problem, risk
perception, and risk-taking behavior. The subjects were
63 college students that were provided with a car-racing
scenario (case study) in which the continued sponsorship
of the venture was dependent on the success of winning.
The decision-making process in terms of the case study
was presented with a framing problem based on a potential for a gain or a prospect for a loss. The risk component of
the case study instrument (that is, the car-racing scenario)
was evaluated with specific risk attributes that included
the probability of participation, the significance of opportunity versus the significance of the decision, the potential
loss, the potential gain, whether this judgment was a negative or positive situation, and the likelihood of success.
The findings for the study revealed that (1) situations that
were framed positively were perceived as higher risk than
circumstances that are framed negatively and (2) the extent (degree) to which subjects made risky decisions were
inversely related to their level of given risk perception.
Anchoring
Anchoring is used to explain the strong inclination we all
have to latch on to a belief that may or may not be truthful, and use it as a reference point for upcoming decisions
according to Ricciardi and Simon (2001). The process of
anchoring within the decision-making process is utilized
by an individual to solve intricate problems by selecting
an initial reference point and slowly adjusting to arrive
at a final judgment. For instance, one of the most fre-
101
quent anchors is a past event or trend. In attempting to

project sales of a product for the coming year, a marketer
often begins by looking at sales volumes for past years.
This approach tends to put too much weight on past history and does not give enough weight to other factors
(Anderson, 1998, p. 94). Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa
(1998) presented this illustration of anchoring:
How would you answer these two questions?
Question 1: Is the population of Turkey greater than 35
million?
Question 2: Whats your best estimate of Turkeys population?
Most people who replied to Question 2 were influenced by
the population of 35 million figure that was revealed in
Question 1 even though it has no factual foundation. The
authors of this study utilized two anchoring scenarios: (1)
for 50% of the experiments the 35 million figure was
employed and (2) for the other 50% of the cases this number was increased to a 100 million figure. The responses
to Question 2 increased by millions when Question 1 was
changed to the 100 million figure. The findings of this
study illustrated that when people make judgments, their
minds give inappropriate significance or overweighs the
value of the original information. First impressions, rough
calculations or statistical figures anchor subsequent thinking and choices (see Hammond, Keeney, and Raiffa, 1998).
Finally, if you reflect on the last risky activity you participated in, chances are that you formed an opinion of
this event immediately upon engaging in it. From now
on you will proceed to view each new bit of knowledge
about this risky activity (e.g., mountain climbing) based
on your first impression. Perhaps the cliche you never
get another opportunity to make a good first impression
is more truthful and accurate than we recognized, when
you contemplate this anchoring effect. To further complicate this bias, even when individuals know they are
anchoring, it is difficult to pull up the anchor. Revising
an intuitive, impulsive judgment will never be sufficient
to undo the original judgment completely. Consciously or
unconsciously, we always remain anchored to our original
opinion, and we correct that view only starting from the
same opinion (Piatelli-Palmarini, 1994, p. 127).
Familiarity Bias
Familiarity bias has been a subject of inquiry within the
risk perception literature for an array of disciplines from
the social sciences and business administration fields. In
basic terms, people prefer things that are familiar to them.
People root for the local sports teams. Employees like to
own their companys stock. The sports teams and the
company are familiar to them (Nofsinger, 2002, p. 64).
Within the risk domain, familiarity bias is an inclination
or prejudice that alters an individuals perception. When
individuals make assessments of risky behaviors and hazardous activities for studies within cognitive psychology;
the findings have shown people are more comfortable and
tolerant of risk when they are personally familiar with a
specific circumstance or activity. For example, risks that
are familiar are feared less than those that are unfamiliar;
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this provides an explanation as to why people overreact

to unexpected information.
The term familiarity has been described by Gigerenzer
and Todd (1999, p. 57) as to denote a degree of knowledge
or experience a person has respect to a task or object.
Whittlesea (1993) provided a noteworthy description of
the concept of familiarity from a behavioral perspective:
A feeling of familiarity is the sine qua non of remembering. Judgments about ones personal past that are not
accompanied by a feeling of familiarity do not feel like
remembering, but instead feel like guessing or problem
solving. In contrast, a feeling of familiarity is usually
sufficient to make one feel one is remembering, whether
or not the feeling is accompanied by recall of the detail
of a prior experience. (p. 1235)
Gilovich (1981) presented this viewpoint on familiarity, we form associations between existing circumstances
and past situations and are influenced by what we consider to be the implications of these past events (p. 797).
Furthermore, Shefrin (2005) noted the relationship between familiarity bias and representativeness in which
individuals are prone to be excessively optimistic when
they have familiarity with a situation and are able to picture themselves as representative of a successful person in
that situation (p. 46).
Since 1975, the psychology of familiarity has been a popular area of investigation within the behavioral accounting risk perception literature. In particular, familiarity bias
was the main behavioral risk characteristic (indicator) in
which behavioral accounting risk perception researchers
explored for 12 research studies during the time period
of 1975 to 2002 (see Ricciardi (2004)). Within the behavioral finance literature, familiarity bias has been applied
in several areas of financial and investment decision making: (1) International finance and asset allocation in which
investors have demonstrated a preference for investing in
domestic stocks (familiar assets) rather than international
stocks (unfamiliar assets); (2) Employees that have invested most of their retirement savings in their companys
stock (familiar assets); and (3) Portfolio managers have
demonstrated a tendency to invest money in local companies or stocks with recognizable brand names or reputations. The risk perception literature review by Ricciardi
(2004) revealed the notion of familiarity was addressed or
alluded to in a number of research endeavors in behavioral finance. Baker and Nofsinger (2002) provided this
description of familiarity bias from a behavioral finance
point of view:
People often prefer things that have some familiarity
to them. Consequently, investors tend to put too much
faith in familiar stocks. Because those stocks are familiar, investors tend to believe that they are less risky
than other companies or even safer than a diversified
portfolio. (p. 101)
The Issue of Perceived Control

The association between control and perceived risk has
been a prevalent topic in psychology since the late 1970s.
Natalier (2001) offered this illustration of the relationship
between control and a risky behavior (e.g., the act of riding
on a motorcycle) when the interaction between motorcy-
clist, motorcycle and environment is flawless, perfect control can be achieved. Control is the ability to foresee and
navigate potential hazards, thus erasing risk in a material
way (p. 71). Strong (2006) presented this portrayal of the
psychology of control within a gambling environment:
Casinos are one of the great laboratories of human behavior. At the craps table, it is observable that when the
dice shooter needs to throw a high number, he gives
them a good, hard pitch to the end of the table. A low
number, however, demands a nice gentle toss. Realistically, the force of the throw has nothing to do with
the outcome of a random event like the throw of dice.
Psychologists refer to this behavior as illusion of control.
We like to pretend we are influencing the outcome by
our method of throwing the dice. If you force the issue,
even a seasoned gambler will probably admit that the
dice outcome is random. (pp. 273274)
The academic literature in the social sciences has offered

a wide range of views on the true meaning of control. Two
main forms of control are (1) locus of control (external versus internal control) and 2) perceived control (illusion of
control). A persons locus of control explains the degree
to which he or she perceives the ability to exert control
over their own behavior and personal outcomes of a specific situation (see Rotter, 1971). External locus of control
provides a person with the perception that chance or outside factors influence ones decision or final outcome of an
event. Internal locus of control is the perception or belief
that a person controls his or her own destiny in terms of
the outcome of a judgment or circumstance.
Langer (1983) provided a different perspective of the
psychology of control (perceived control) as the active
belief that one has a choice among responses that are
differentially effective in achieving the desired outcome
(p. 20). According to Baker and Nofsinger (2002, p. 103):
People often believe that they have influence over the
outcome of uncontrollable events. All types of individuals (e.g., experts, novices), to some extent, reveal a
natural tendency and need to control situations that they
encounter each day. People profess a desire to attempt
to control a certain situation with the main objective of
influencing the results or outcomes in their favor. Even
in instances when control of an outcome is obviously in
short supply; a person perceives that one has control over
the outcome of a situation known as illusion of control as
noted by Langer (1975). In effect, illusion of control makes
a person believe based on their skills or diligence that he
or she can influence and control the outcome of a random
decision or situation (that is, based on the belief in their
expertise, skill or ability to avoid large monetary losses)
according to MacCrimmon and Wehrung (1988).
Within the literature on finance and investment decision making, the notion of how control influences an investors perception of risk has become a well-noted and
established area of inquiry. The academic studies in behavioral accounting by Koonce, McAnally, and Mercer
(2001) and Koonce, McAnally, and Mercer (2005) have utilized a host of behavioral risk characteristics (indicators)
which included a control factor developed by the Decision Research organization within the social science risk
perception literature. The literature review in behavioral
finance by Ricciardi (2004) revealed that since the early
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1980s, the association between control and perceived risk

has been a leading area of analysis. In particular, researchers from behavioral finance have focused their work
on two main categories of control:. First is the relationship between locus of control and risk-taking behavior in
works by McInish (1980), McInish (1982), Maital, Filer and
Simon (1986), and Grable and Joo (2000). Second is a collection of control issues and variables that have included
perceived control, the feeling of control, controllability,
and the illusion of control in 11 studies (see Holtgrave
and Weber [1993], Olsen [1997], Sarasvathy, Simon, and
Lave [1998], Williams and Voon [1999], Houghton, Simon,
Aquino, and Goldberg [2000], Goszczynska and GuewaLesny [2000a, 2000b], Heilar, Lonie, Power, and Sinclair
[2001], Weber, Blais, and Betz [2002], Forlani [2002], and
Dulebohn [2002]).
The Significance of Expert Knowledge

Since the late 1970s, the psychology of expert knowledge
(that is, novices versus experts) and its relationship to perceived risk has been an established research theme in the
social sciences. The risk perception literature has documented that changes in the level of a persons knowledge
can result in an adjustment to their risk perception for
a specific activity or situation. For instance, the more individuals perceive an activity as difficult to understand
(a lower degree of perceived knowledge) the increased
anxiety or fear they have towards it. Websters Dictionary
defines an expert as a person who is very skillful or
highly trained and informed in some special field and
knowledge as the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association. Hayek (1945) offered this perspective of how
an extensive group of decision makers (e.g., investors in
the financial markets) assess information: the fact that the
knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make
use never exists in concentrated or integrated form, but
solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently
contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess (p. 519).
Lee (1999) offered this assessment of the association between the degree of knowledge and perceived risk:
[C]hanging knowledge . . . can change risk perceptions.
For example, several studies have shown that provision
of information about a risk (e.g. from electromagnetic
fields or radon) can increase risk perception. . . . On the
other hand, however, even anecdotal evidence suggests
that people with the same level of knowledge about risk
(e.g. experts on a risk issue) may nevertheless disagree
in their risk evaluation. . . . Scientists as well as risk
managers and politicians often complain about laypeoples lack of knowledge of science and technology and
the associated risks in particular . . . These knowledge
gaps are often blamed for leading to unreasonable risk
perception . . . The reasoning assumes a simple, monotone and inverse casual relationship between knowledge and perceived risk: the smaller the knowledge, the
higher the perceived risk. Empirical research, however,
suggests that the relationship between knowledge and
risk perception is more complex. While some studies,
in particular nuclear power, established the inverse relationship, others failed to demonstrate an association.
(p. 7)
103
Within the academic finance literature, the significance

of the level of knowledge and how this behavioral issue
might influence an investment professionals perception
of risk has developed into a highly prominent area of
analysis. The risk perception studies in behavioral accounting by Koonce, McAnally, and Mercer (2001) and
Koonce, McAnally, and Mercer (2005) have employed a
collection of behavioral risk indicators which also comprised a knowledge characteristic. The behavioral finance risk perception literature review by Ricciardi (2004)
demonstrated that the affiliation between the notion of
knowledge (expertise) and perceived risk (risk-taking behavior) within the academic research has been a leading area of study since the mid-1980s in a number of
studies.
The Role of Affect (Feelings)

Brehmer (1987) was critical of the academic research
within the social science risk perception literature since
academics only explored cognitive issues and all but disregarded the affective reactions (emotional aspects) of psychological risk. However, during the late 1990s, social
scientists began to explore both the cognitive and affective nature of perceived risk (see Hellessy, Grnhaug, and
Kvitastein [1998]; Sjoberg

[1998]; Slovic, MacGregor, and
Peters [1998]; MacGregor, Slovic, Berry, and Evensky
[1999]; Slovic [1999]; Finucane, Alhakami, Slovic, and
Johnson [2000]; Loewenstein, Hsee, Weber, and Welsh
[2001]; Pligt [2002]; Slovic, Finucane, Peters, and MacGregor [2002a, 2002b]; Slovic, Finucane, Peters, and MacGre and Scholz [2005]; Keller, Siegrist,
gor [2004]; Grasmuck
and Heinz [2006]; Leiserowitz [2006]; Peters, Vastfjall,
Garling, and Slovic [2006]; Slovic and Peters [2006]; and
Slovic, Finucane, Peters, and MacGregor [2007]).
Finucane, Peters, and Slovic (2003) provided these two
main themes of the meaning of affect: (1) experienced
as a feeling state (with or without consciousness) and (2)
demarcating a positive or negative quality of a specific
stimulus (p. 328). Behavioral decision theorists have acknowledged that the study of the emotional responses
(that is, issues of affect) is an essential aspect of how individuals make risk judgments. The significance of emotion
(affect) within the social sciences is apparent in a number of books on the subject matter (see Strongman [1987];
Ortony, Clore, and Collins [1988]; Lewis and Haviland
[1993]; Forgas [2001]; Musch and Klauer [2003]; Panksepp
[2004]; and Rolls [2005]). Pligt (2002) depicted the progression of the role of cognitive factors and affective responses
within the risk perception literature:
Two different research traditions, one focusing on largescale technological risks, the other on more personal
risks associated with behavioral practices or hereditary
factors . . . For a long time both focused on cognitive
approaches to help our understanding of peoples perception and acceptance of risks. Cognitive approaches
were also used to help explain the relation between perceived risk and behavior. Only occasionally, emotions
and motivational factors were taken into account. More
recently this has changed, and research now attempts
to incorporate both cognition and emotion. (p. 248)
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Within the behavioral finance literature, a growing

theme of investigation has been the influence of affect in
the areas of perceived risk and investment decision making in a sample of endeavors (see Lifson and Geist [1999];
Williams and Voon [1999]; MacGregor, Slovic, Dreman and
Berry [2000]; Olsen [2000]; Finucane, Peters, and Slovic
[2003]; Dreman [2004]; Pixley [2004]; Lucey and Dowling
[2005]; and Olson [2006]). Shefrin (2005) provided this
behavioral finance perspective of affective (emotional)
issues:
Most managers base their decisions on what feels right
to them emotionally. Psychologists use the technical
term affect to mean emotional feeling, and they use
the term affect heuristic to describe behavior that places
heavy reliance on intuition or gut feeling. As with
other heuristics, affect heuristic involves mental shortcuts that can predispose managers to bias. (p. 10)
Finucane, Peters, and Slovic (2003) noted the importance

for researchers to understand the different meanings of
emotion, mood, and affect. An emotion is a state of consciousness (mind) connected to the arousal of feelings.
In essence, an emotion is a mental condition that occurs
impulsively rather than by conscious effort and is often associated by physiological changes (e.g., a specific feeling
such as joy or hate). A mood (also known as feelings) refers
to any of the subjective responses, pleasant or unpleasant,
that a person might experience from a specific situation.
In other words, a mood (feeling) is an affective state of
awareness resulting from emotions. The notion of affect is
the emotional complex (that is, positive or negative feelings) associated with an idea or mental state. In essence,
affect is a feeling revealed as a reaction to a stimulus
(e.g., a collection of financial information for a stock investment). Finucane, Peters, and Slovic (2003) elaborated
further on this affective process:
Individuals differ in the strength and speed of their
positive and negative reactions, and stimuli themselves
vary in the strength and speed with which they elicit
positive and negative feelings. An affective reaction
can be an enduring disposition strongly related to the
stimulus. . ., but can also be a fleeting reaction or a
weakly related response. . .The affective quality of a
stimulus may vary with the context: The strength of
positive or negative feelings may depend on what aspects of a stimulus stand out as most salient at any
particular time. (p. 328)
Loewenstein, Hsee, Weber, and Welsh (2001) noted several valuable points associated with risk and affect. The
emotional aspect of risk frequently departs from the cognitive influences of risk perceptions. For decisions under
risk and uncertainty, affective responses (emotional consequences) commonly apply primary reactions to behavior above cognitive influences and cause behaviors that
are not adaptive. Furthermore, affective reactions result
in behavioral outcomes that diverge from what people
considered the optimum outcome of a decision.
The cognitive factors that are mentioned involve how an
individual processes information and what factors influences their perception of risk for a certain decision (e.g.,
issues of heuristics, framing, anchoring, representative-
ness). In essence, to fully understand the judgmental process of investors, researchers must consider both the cognitive and affective (emotional) aspects of how investors
process information and perceive risk for a given activity,
situation or circumstance.
The Influence of Worry

The exploration by researchers in areas other than business into the significance of worry has slowly received
increased attention within the risk perception literature.
(See, for example, Drottz-Sjoberg

and Sjoberg
[1990];
MacGregor [1991]; Sjoberg

[1998]; Baron, Hershey and
Kunreuther [2000]; Constans [2001]; Rundmo [2002];
Sjoberg
[2004]; Schnur, DiLorenzo, Montgomery, Erblich,
Winkel, Hall, and Bovbjerg [2006]; and Peters, Slovic,
Hibbard, and Tusler [2006].) During the 1970s, the original risk perception studies in psychology by researchers
at the Decision Research organization alluded to a negative feeling of concern (worry) about risk known as dread
or dreadness that influences a persons perception of risk
towards a specific risky behavior or hazardous activity.
In relation to the emotional aspects of risk, the process of
worrying is a lasting concern with a past or an upcoming
event. Worry is a category of risk assessment that makes
a person feel as if he or she were reliving a past occasion
or living out a future one, and the individual cannot stop
these types of contemplations from happening.
A behavioral definition of worry is how a person might
react towards a specific situation or decision that causes
anxiety, fear, or unhappiness. MacGregor (1991) offered
this overview of worry from a cognitive perspective:
One way to think about worry is a cognitive process
that occurs when we are uncertain about a future event
or activity. In common usage, worry is often used synonymously with terms like fear and anxiety. However, in a strict sense, worry is a primarily a mental activity, whereas anxiety and fear include emotional components and associated physical responses . . . Worry is
thinking about uncertainties, whereas anxiety includes
the gut-level feeling that accompanies uncertainty.
(p. 316)
Researchers in the area of risk perception from the social science literature have debated over whether worry
(or the act of worrying) is a cognitive or affective (emotional) process. MacGregor (1991) considered worry from
a cognitive perspective; Drottz-Sjoberg

and Sjoberg
(1990)
and Constans (2001) considered worry from an emotional
standpoint. Rundmo (2002) viewed worry as an affective
reaction, Sjoberg
(1998) recognized the problems in identifying the differences between emotional and cognitive
concepts. Loewenstein, Hsee, Weber, and Welsh (2001)
provided this perspective:
The risk-as-feelings hypothesis . . . postulates that responses to risky situations (including decision making) result in part from direct (i.e., not cortically mediated) emotional influences, including feelings such
as worry, fear, dread, or anxiety. People are assumed
to evaluate risky alternatives at a cognitive level, as
in traditional models, based largely on the probability and desirability of associated consequences. Such
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cognitive evaluation have affective consequences, and

feeling states also exert a reciprocal influence on cognitive evaluations . . . Because their determinants are different, emotional reactions to risks can diverge from
cognitive evaluations of the same risks . . . behavior is
then determined by the interplay between these two,
often conflicting, responses to a situation. (p. 270)
In the realm of finance, worry has practical application

by everyday investors in the financial markets. The news
media continually supports the act of worrying in the
minds of stock market investors whenever they report
news that the market has declined on any given day or
released bad news from various sources such as online
new stories, newspapers, and reports on business segments of television news. For instance, a headline from
BusinessWeek in January 2002 suggested that before investors consider buying a stock of a company they should
read the article entitled, Investors New Worry: Auditor
Risk and another news story from U.S. News & World
Report in 1994 read Worry Over Weird Investments. In
November 2006, another example was discussed in a
news story from Barrons entitled Google: 500 Reasons
to Worry because the stock had a closing price above
$500 per share.
From an academic perspective, the notion of worry has
followed the usual pattern in which this behavioral indicator was first explored within the risk perception literature
in psychology and then crossed over to other alternative
behavioral business disciplines. The behavioral risk indicator worry was a noteworthy finding in a small sample
of risk perception studies in works by Koonce, McAnally,
and Mercer (2001) and Koonce, McAnally, and Mercer
(2005) in behavioral accounting, the study by Snelbecker,
Roszkowski, and Cutler (1990) in behavioral economics,
and the study by MacGregor, Slovic, Berry, and Evensky
(1999) in behavioral finance.
SUMMARY
This chapter provided a general discussion of the topics of
perceived risk and perception. Risk perception (perceived
risk) involves the subjective judgments that people utilize
in terms of their evaluation of risk and the degree of uncertainty. The practice of perception is a technique by which
people categorize and understand their sensory intuitions
in order to provide an assessment of their surroundings
with the recognition of actions or objects rather than
simply factors or traits.
A considerable number of research studies on perceived
risk and risk-taking behavior by social scientists have
crossed over and are now applied in various business settings. The current risk perception research in behavioral
finance, accounting, and economics were first started during the ground breaking studies on risky behaviors and
hazardous activities at the Decision Research organization. Their influential research in perceived risk, as well as
that by other social scientists, revealed:
r Perceived risk is quantifiable, foreseeable, subjective
(qualitative), and descriptive in nature.
105
r Risk is determined by different types of behavioral risk

r
r
r
r
r
r
characteristics (indicators) such as the degree of dread,

worry, familiarity, and controllability.
The assessment of risk between novices and experts differ for a wide range of risky activities and potential
hazards.
Cultural theory has investigated and determined the
influence of culture instead of exclusively individual
psychology as a reason for differences in risk assessments.
Information obtained from trusted sources is assigned
more credibility than information from distrusted
sources.
Risk possesses a degree of emotion (affect) as an essential aspect of the judgment and decision-making process.
The notion of an inverse relationship between perceived
risk and perceived gain (benefit).
Outside forces such as media attention influence personal assessment and perspective of risk.
Classical decision making is the foundation of standard

finance since it is based on the notion of rationality in
which investors formulate financial decisions. As a matter of course, standard finance has discarded the view that
the decision-making process is influenced by psychology
in which individuals are sometimes prevented from making the most rational decisions. Behavioral finance is based
on the premise that investors make decisions relative to
the tenets of behavioral decision theory and bounded rationality. For instance, an investor displays cognitive and
affective (emotional) issues during the decision-making
process in the assessment of risk and the evaluation of a
specific investment product or service.
Within the social sciences, the risk perception literature has established that a significant number of cognitive and affective (emotional) characteristics influence an
individuals risk perception for non-financial judgments.
The behavioral finance, economics, and accounting literature have revealed an assortment of these cognitive and
affective issues exist during the financial decision making process in terms of how an investor perceives risk for
a wide range of investment instruments (e.g., common
stock, mutual fund) and financial services (e.g., tax planning, selecting a financial advisor).
This chapter provided an overview of these behavioral
finance issues and theories that influence an investors
risk perception: the notion of heuristics, issues of overconfidence, the tenets of prospect theory, the influence of
loss aversion, the concept of representativeness, issues of
framing, the topic of anchoring, the notion of familiarity
bias, the factors of perceived control, the issues of expert
knowledge, the role of affect (feelings), and the influence
of worry.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank the following individuals for their support and inspiration: Robert Olsen, Hugh
Schwartz, Hersh Shefrin, Meir Statman, Terrance Odean,
Paul Slovic, Bernd Rohrmann, Igor Tomic, Michael Jensen,
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22:14
William Sharpe, David Dreman, Arnold Wood, Arthur

Wilson, Hamid Shomali, Hank Pruden, Steve Hawkey,
and Douglas Rice. Special thanks to Janice Carter, Dolores
Neese, and Linda Hayden for countless hours of library
research and dedication to this endeavor.
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June 24, 2008

The Psychology of Risk: The Behavioral

What Is Risk Perception?

What Are the Main Theories and Concepts from

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1155822

June 24, 2008

The Psychology of Risk: The Behavioral Finance Perspective

Keywords: risk, perception, risk perception, perceived risk, judgment, decision

of financial services and investment instruments such as

WHAT IS RISK PERCEPTION?

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1155822

June 24, 2008

self-esteem and the esteem of others, their wives, their

Cox and Rich (1964) provided a more precise definition

All of these different issues demonstrate that a person

Risk is a distinct attribute for each individual for the

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1155822

June 24, 2008

The Psychology of Risk: The Behavioral Finance Perspective

the chances or possible outcomes of a specific event or

an exact recording of it. In short, perception is a very

Morgan and King (1966), elaborated further with their

June 24, 2008

rience of a similar event, situation or activity.

r People focus or pay attention to, different components

(information) of the same situation.

r A major premise of perception is individuals have the

ability to only process a limited number of facts and

One final perspective is the one presented by Kast and

A Visual Presentation of the Perceptual

Figure 10.1 The Litterer Perception Formation Model

presentation and further explanation of the perceptual

June 24, 2008

The Psychology of Risk: The Behavioral Finance Perspective

JUDGMENT AND DECISION

The Standard Finance Viewpoint:

instantaneously and that stock prices completely reflect

June 24, 2008

The Behavioral Finance Perspective: The

Studies making up the field of behavioral finance show

Behavioral finance focuses on the theories and concepts

FINANCIAL AND INVESTMENT

June 24, 2008

The Psychology of Risk: The Behavioral Finance Perspective

researchers have supported the concept of behavioral

The Standard Finance Viewpoint:

June 24, 2008

at the time the decision is to be made. A person cannot

The Behavioral Finance Perspective:

tifaceted, open to change and often formed during the

June 24, 2008

The Psychology of Risk: The Behavioral Finance Perspective

r Financial decision makers are neurologically predis-

posed to incorporate affect (emotion) into the decision

Simons work focused on the idea that the decision

Academic models of judgment and decision making

June 24, 2008

in terms the evolution of economic man:

Later research extended Simons initial ideas on

sible capabilities of calculation.

limitations, the tools of heuristics) are unscientific.

r The decision-making process involves factors that are

subjective and qualitative in nature.